Social Mobility Myths
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Product Description
Product Description
In a meritocratic society, people's achievements should reflect their own efforts and talents - if you are reasonably bright and motivated there should be little stopping you from succeeding in life. In Social Mobility Myths, Peter Saunders, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Sussex, sets out to convince the political class that much of what they believe (or say they believe) about social mobility in this country is either false or more complicated than they think. According to Saunders, modern Britain is a much more open and meritocratic society than most of us realise and talent and motivation are the key drivers of success and achievement. Saunders examines the political circumstances in which the social mobility debate is now being played out and identifies four specific Social Mobility Myths: The myth that Britain is a closed shop society in which life chances are heavily shaped by the class you are born into; The myth that social mobility, already limited, is now getting worse; The myth that differences of ability between individuals either do not exist, or are irrelevant in explaining differential rates of success; The myth that governments can increase mobility via top-down social re-engineering within the education system and greater income redistribution. According to Saunders, most politicians across all parties accept these myths. They wrongly assume that social mobility in Britain is very limited and that class origins count for much more than personal effort and talent in shaping people s destinies. Furthermore, they commonly express their sense of outrage that a class-ridden, closed society is becoming even more class-ridden and even more closed - thus the scene has been set for yet another bout of ineffective but expensive social engineering aimed at dismantling the imagined inequities of the British class system. In Social Mobility Myths, Saunders investigates the link between intelligence and social class using empirical sociological models. He argues that by ignoring intelligence, current thinking is in danger of spawning policies that will not work, and which might even make things worse. The bottom line is this: we cannot hope to develop good policies if we ignore the key influence on the phenomenon we are hoping to change.
About the Author
Peter Saunders is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Sussex. He is also a freelance consultant and independent author. He was previously Social Research Director at the Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney, and Research Manager at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a very interesting and thoughtful book. It nicely shows how much that we commonly read about social mobility fails to paint the whole picture. It provides the facts behind the reported facts, in a highly accessible manner, and lays out the contradictions and limitations of measures which are commonly reported.
I would regard this book as being aimed more towards the broadsheet reader than the academic audience myself. It provides a substantive overview to the issues behind social mobility, but is as selective in the cases it wishes to make as the examples being critiqued in many places. This text cannot be the sole, comprehensive guide to the issue as the reality is much more complex than any singular position can achieve. It is a stronger version of the story of mobility than politicians care to speak of.
It does however, create a bit of a straw man argument by claiming the author is alone with British sociologist in denying that social mobility no longer exists. It's a shame there is so much focus on dispelling research providing an opposing view, and little, if any, reference to the many studies which support it. This creates a rather unfair perception of sociology in my opinion.
The text is very argumentative. The somewhat strange argument is presented that left-wing people want to claim there is less social mobility which right-wing people want to claim there is more. I don't see this as being true at all. Indeed, researchers have argued that whilst social mobility is increasing, so is social inequality. This distinction between social mobility and social inequality is lost in much of the narrative, which is very confrontational.
I agree with the argument that politicians and journalists like to talk about the death of social mobility. Indeed, the minor limitations of the narrative in this book do not compare to the major rhetoric used elsewhere. Anyone reading or listening to reports of the death of social mobility should read this book to see just how the figures can be presented in a misleading manner, or how economic expansion is often glossed over. Readers will have a much stronger idea of how social mobility operates in British society through reading this highly accessible book (even if gathered a rather skewed view of how the British sociological community views the issue).
I would regard this book as being aimed more towards the broadsheet reader than the academic audience myself. It provides a substantive overview to the issues behind social mobility, but is as selective in the cases it wishes to make as the examples being critiqued in many places. This text cannot be the sole, comprehensive guide to the issue as the reality is much more complex than any singular position can achieve. It is a stronger version of the story of mobility than politicians care to speak of.
It does however, create a bit of a straw man argument by claiming the author is alone with British sociologist in denying that social mobility no longer exists. It's a shame there is so much focus on dispelling research providing an opposing view, and little, if any, reference to the many studies which support it. This creates a rather unfair perception of sociology in my opinion.
The text is very argumentative. The somewhat strange argument is presented that left-wing people want to claim there is less social mobility which right-wing people want to claim there is more. I don't see this as being true at all. Indeed, researchers have argued that whilst social mobility is increasing, so is social inequality. This distinction between social mobility and social inequality is lost in much of the narrative, which is very confrontational.
I agree with the argument that politicians and journalists like to talk about the death of social mobility. Indeed, the minor limitations of the narrative in this book do not compare to the major rhetoric used elsewhere. Anyone reading or listening to reports of the death of social mobility should read this book to see just how the figures can be presented in a misleading manner, or how economic expansion is often glossed over. Readers will have a much stronger idea of how social mobility operates in British society through reading this highly accessible book (even if gathered a rather skewed view of how the British sociological community views the issue).
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Well written and quite absorbing. Does exactly what it says on the tin: a believable job at dispelling social mobility myths that plague public policies in Britain and elsewhere. A hard to swallow book for left-wing fanatics.
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